Systems and methods for facilitating real estate transactions with purchase offer processing feature

ABSTRACT

A system and method for facilitating real estate transactions that is configured for receiving property information from a listing service or data feed, presenting a property information display on data communication devices for each property; generating a unique transaction actuator in each property information display, and responsive to selecting a unique transaction actuator, generating an offer form with an offer transmittal actuator, wherein the offer form includes a plurality of data fields relating to an offer to purchase property that are populated with the property information for the specific property associated with the selected unique transaction actuator.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The subject disclosure is generally directed to systems and methods for facilitating transactions between multiple parties, such as real estate transactions.

2. Background of the Related Art

Over many years there has been the development of multiple listing services (MLSs) that provide property listing aggregations for real estate brokers, agents, and other professionals in the real estate transaction chain that pay for membership. Each MLS generally consists of a database of residential, multifamily, commercial, and land real estate listings for the purpose of buying, selling or leasing those properties in a geographically specific market.

While the basic fields, such as lot size, list price, size of building, number of bedrooms, etc., are present in all MLSs, beyond the basic nature of the data collected by MLSs, their formatting varies widely, largely based on the historic preferences and development of the profession of each geographic market.

A standard for the transfer or exchange of property listing information, which is referred to as Real Estate Transaction Specification (RETS), has been developed by industry members over the last decade to address the formatting differences. The RETS is an XML standard that allows for the electronic interchange of listing information at the protocol level by, among other things, defining common basic fields.

While the MLSs remain a powerful tool which facilitates locating property to purchase, it does not facilitate the actual transaction or purchase of property between parties, which is still very much a non-automated and ad-hoc process.

For at least the foregoing reasons, there is a compelling need in the art for a real estate transaction management system and method that provides buyers, sellers and real estate professionals with the tools necessary to facilitate the purchase of property, and in particular, which facilitates the automated processing of purchase offers, counteroffers and acceptances, among other things.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Some embodiments of the invention provide a system and method for addressing the needs mentioned above, among other things.

Some embodiments of the invention are directed to systems and methods for facilitating real estate transactions, comprising the steps of: receiving property listing data through a first data communication device in communication with a source of property listing data, wherein the property listing data relates to one or more properties for sale and an offer receiving address; presenting a property information display on the first data communication device for each property; and generating a unique transaction actuator in each property information display presented on the first data communication device, wherein the unique transaction actuator is associated with the specific property presented on the first data communication device.

In some embodiments, the aforementioned method and system of the invention is configured to respond to selecting a unique transaction actuator by: generating an offer form with an offer transmittal actuator, wherein the offer form includes a plurality of data fields relating to an offer to purchase property; and populating the data fields with the property information for the specific property associated with the selected unique transaction actuator, wherein the offer form represents an offer to purchase the specific property and includes an offer transmitting address.

In some embodiments, the aforementioned system and method of the invention is configured to further respond to selecting the offer transmittal actuator by transmitting the populated offer form to the offer receiving address relating to the specific property; generating an offer response actuator for the populated offer form; and presenting the populated offer form and the offer response actuator on a second data communication device.

In some embodiments, the aforementioned system and method of the invention is configured to yet further respond to selecting the offer response actuator by: generating a response form, wherein the response form includes at least one data field for entering a response to the offer and a response transmittal actuator.

In some embodiments, the aforementioned system and method of the invention is configured to yet further respond to selecting the response transmittal actuator by transmitting the response form with the entered response to the offer transmitting address.

These and other aspects of the system and method of the subject invention and some embodiments thereof will become more readily apparent to those having ordinary skill in the art from the following detailed description of the invention and some embodiments thereof taken in conjunction with the drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGURES

So that those having ordinary skill in the art to which at least some embodiments of the invention pertains will more readily understand how to make and use systems and methods in accordance therewith, such embodiments thereof will be described in enabling detail herein below with reference to the drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram representative of an example electronic real estate transacting system in which certain embodiments may be employed; and

FIG. 2 is a flow diagram depicting operational steps employed by a system and method formed in accordance with some embodiments of the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The invention is generally related to systems and methods for facilitating transaction management electronically through access to an electronic transaction management platform which includes an offer and acceptance processing feature that provides offer submission, offer receipt, offer management, offer countering and offer amendment capabilities to transacting parties.

Much of the inventive functionality and many of the inventive principles are best implemented with or in software programs and instructions. It is expected that one of ordinary skill, notwithstanding possibly significant effort and many design choices motivated by, for example, available time, current technology, and economic considerations, when guided by the concepts and principles disclosed herein will be readily capable of generating such software instructions with minimal experimentation. Therefore, in the interest of brevity and minimization of any risk of obscuring the principles and concepts according to the present invention, further discussion of such software, if any, will be limited to the essentials with respect to the principles and concepts used by the preferred embodiments.

Some embodiments of the invention disclose a new and useful tool for facilitating real estate transactions and in particular the offer submission, acceptance, negotiation and processing of offers between parties. The data communication device may receive and populate the real estate listing data for which offers are to be submitted on, from any one or more sources, including real estate listing systems, computerized real estate listing systems or an entity such as the multiple listing service (MLS) or any aggregator of MLS listing data. The data feed from the MLS may be sent to the data communication device in any format, including, but not limited to, RETS, Internet Data Exchange (IDX), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Extensible Markup Language (XML), or any other data feed format. The listing data feed, regardless of the initial format of the feed, may be modified as necessary to populate and display the data to a user through a connection with a data communication device.

While the embodiments discussed herein provide systems and methods for facilitating offer and acceptance processing for real estate transactions, it should be understood that this is a non-limiting, exemplary embodiment of a system and method of the invention. The systems and methods of the invention may be used in connection with transactions involving other subject matter, including any items or services which may be sold or involved in a transaction.

Those skilled in the art will readily appreciate that a system in accordance with some embodiments of the invention may include various computer and network related software and hardware, that is, programs, operating systems, memory storage devices, data input/output devices, data processors, servers with links to data communication systems, wireless or otherwise, such as those which take the form of a local or wide area network, and a plurality of data transceiving terminals capable of interfacing with the network, such as personal computers, handheld devices, personal digital assistants (PDAs), cell phones or any other devices capable of displaying a graphical user interface.

Those skilled in the art will further appreciate that the particular types of communication network and devices, software and hardware are not vital to the full implementation of the embodiments described herein or other embodiments within the scope and spirit of the invention. It should be understood that the type of communication network and devices, software and hardware may also vary based on the rapid advances in technology that are ongoing in the industry. In other words, the precise software and hardware configuration of the various embodiments of the invention may vary accordingly while still remaining within the scope and spirit of the invention.

Although the description discloses embodiments including, among other components, software executed on hardware, it should be noted that the embodiments are merely illustrative and should not be considered as limiting. For example, it is contemplated that any or all of these hardware and software components may be embodied exclusively in hardware, exclusively in software, exclusively in firmware, or in any combination of hardware, software, and/or firmware. Accordingly, certain embodiments may be implemented in other ways. Furthermore, well known process steps and computer components may have not been described in detail herein in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the underlying concepts.

FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram representative of an example electronic real estate transaction management system 10 in which certain embodiments may be employed. System 10 includes a transacting device 12, a gateway 14, and an electronic real estate market feed 16, which may comprise a database, or any data feed containing real estate listing data such as those described herein, including the RETS, IDX, FTP and XML data feeds. Transacting device 12 is in communication with the communication gateway 14. Gateway 14 is in communication with the electronic real estate market feed 16 in order to extract or obtain the real estate listing data.

As used herein, the phrase “in communication” encompasses direct communication and/or indirect communication through one or more intermediary components. The exemplary electronic system 10 depicted in FIG. 1 may be in communication with additional components, subsystems, and elements to provide additional functionality and capabilities without departing from the teaching and disclosure provided herein.

In operation, the transacting device 12 may receive real estate listing data from the electronic real estate market feed 16 through the communication gateway 14 for one or more properties for sale. The real estate listing data may include a variety of pictures and information about the property for sale and its contact person or transacting party, such as the owner, real estate professional, broker or agent involved in the listing, the type of property, history of the property, school district, city, county, state, zip code, mailing address, seller information, and current status. In some embodiments, the listings data provided to transacting device 12 from market feed 16 will be updated upon request or periodically in order to provide the most current information about properties for sale and remove properties which are no longer for sale on the electronic market.

Market feed 16 may contain listing data in more than one format, which may occur because market feed 16 includes data from more than one source, MLS or data feed. In some embodiments, system 10 is configured to automatically map the listing information obtained from market feed 16 to a preset format for presentation on transacting device 12.

A user may utilize the transacting device 12 to search and review real estate listings of properties currently available on the electronic market. Users may further utilize transacting device 12 to submit an offer to purchase one or more of the properties for sale. In some embodiments, the offer to purchase includes mapping the listing data for the property involved in the offer to a preset offer form which may then be transmitted through gateway 14 to the transacting device 12, electronic real estate market feed 16 and/or a contact person for the listing.

The contact person or people for the listing may be notified of the offer and receive the offer through another transacting device 12 in communication with communication gateway 14. The contact person may then respond to the offer through communication with gateway 14 by, for example, requesting clarification or an amendment, indicating acceptance of the offer, declining the offer and presenting a counteroffer, all of which can be transmitted through gateway 14 to the transacting device 12 of the user who transmitted the offer.

Transacting device 12 may include one or more electronic computing platforms. For example, transacting device 12 may include a desktop computer, hand-held device, laptop, server, a portable computing device, or a terminal, which may include a display and be in communication with a server. As another example, the transacting device 12 may include a single or multi-core processor in communication with a memory or other storage medium configured to accessibly store one or more computer programs, applications, libraries, computer readable instructions, and the like, for execution by the processor.

As used herein, the phrases “configured to” and “adapted to” encompass that an element, structure, or device has been modified, arranged, changed, or varied to perform a specific function or for a specific purpose.

Transacting device 12 may include one or more transacting applications which facilitates or improves electronic real estate transaction management. These transacting applications may include computer readable instructions that are stored in a computer readable medium and executable by a processor. A computer readable medium may include various types of volatile and non-volatile storage media, including, for example, random access memory, read-only memory, programmable read-only memory, electrically programmable read-only memory, electrically erasable read-only memory, flash memory, any combination thereof, or any other tangible data storage device. As used herein, the term non-transitory or tangible computer readable medium is expressly defined to include any type of computer readable storage media and to exclude propagating signals.

One or more components or modules of a transacting application may be loaded into the computer readable medium of the transacting device 12 from another computer readable medium. For example, the transacting application (or updates thereto) may be stored by a manufacturer, developer, or publisher on one or more CDs or DVDs, which are then loaded onto the transacting device 12 or to a server from which device 12 retrieves the application. As another example, the transacting device 12 may receive the transacting application (or updates to the transacting application) from a server, for example, via the Internet or an internal network. The transacting device 12 may receive the transacting application or updates when requested by the transacting device 12 and/or un-requested by the transacting device 12.

The gateway 14 may include one or more electronic computing platforms. For example, the gateway 14 may be implemented as one or more desktop computer, hand-held device, laptop, server, a portable computing device, a terminal, a workstation with a single or multi-core processor, cluster of computers, databases, servers, or any combination thereof.

Gateway 14 may facilitate communication. For example, the gateway 14 may perform protocol translation for data communicated between the transacting device 12 and the market 16. For example, the gateway 14 may transform property listing data in a market-specific format received from the market feed 16 into a single format which is best understood by the transacting device 12.

Gateway 14 may include a transacting application, similar to the transacting applications discussed above, that facilitates or improves electronic real estate transaction management and offer and acceptance processing. In some embodiments, gateway 14 communicates with the market feed 16 using a local area network, a wide area network, a virtual private network, a T1 line, a T3 line, an ISDN line, a point-of-presence, the Internet, and/or a shared memory system, for example. It should be understood that communication with market feed 16 may require the entry and approval of proper credentials, such as username and password.

In some embodiments, transacting device 12 and gateway 14 are mounted together in a unitary housing, while in other embodiments they are separate and remotely positioned components.

Electronic real estate market feed 16 may include any electronic real estate listing system or data feed from one or more computers, servers, or other computing devices, which is continually being updated by multiple users. Market feed 16 is typically in communication with a variety of other transacting devices, which may be similar to transacting device 12.

Property data from market feed 16 may be provided in one or more messages or data packets or through a shared memory system. For example, the market feed 16 may publish a data feed to subscribing devices, such as the transacting device 12 or gateway 14. The data feed may include property data.

System 10 may include additional, different, or fewer components. For example, system 10 may include multiple transacting devices, gateways, and/or markets. In another example, system 10 may include other communication devices, such as middleware, firewalls, hubs, switches, routers, servers, exchange-specific communication equipment, modems, security managers, and/or encryption/decryption devices.

As mentioned above, with the continuous and ongoing improvements in computer and electronic technology, many modifications may be made to the specific nature of hardware and/or software components required. Accordingly, one of skill in the art may select any hardware components that would rapidly and efficiently process the data and provide storage and communication as needed for the successful operation of some embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 2 provides a process flow diagram which illustrates operational steps employed by an exemplary embodiment of the method of the invention referred to as method 50. For illustrative purposes and convenience, the process steps will be described in conjunction with the exemplary system embodied by system 10 as shown in FIG. 1.

It should be understood that graphical user interfaces may be employed by embodiments disclosed herein for display on a transacting device 12 that may incorporate user-friendly features and fit seamlessly with other operating system interfaces, that is, in a framed form having borders, multiple folders, toolbars with drop or pull-down menus, embedded links to other screens and various other selectable features associated with animated graphical representations of depressible buttons. These features can be selected (i.e., “clicked on”) by the user via connected mouse, keyboard, touch screen or other commonly used tool for indicating a preference in a computerized graphical interface.

In some embodiments, step 52 involves a user requesting property listing data through a transacting device 12 which communicates with electronic market 16 through gateway 14 to obtain the requested property data. It should be understood that in some gateway 14 may be configured to request updated data for one or more particular markets or areas on a regular basis, such as daily, so that users are initially provided with updated data, though further requests from market 16 are also enabled.

In step 54, the requested property listing data is received from a data feed or other source and presented on a transacting device 12. The property listing data for each property is mapped to data fields for presentation in a preset universal format display through transacting device 12. The data fields may include a variety of information about the property and an address, such as an email address, for receiving requests for further information about the property or receiving offers to purchase the property.

In step 56, a unique transaction actuator is generated for each property and made accessible in connection with the property information display. A user may select to make an offer on a specific property by selecting or clicking on the transaction actuator through transacting device 12. The transaction actuator may be a hyperlink and represented by a symbol and/or text.

In step 58, responsive to selecting a transaction actuator associated with a specific property, an offer form is either automatically populated with all of the property data relating to the specific property selected, partially populated with the remaining manually entered or all of the information is manually entered. One or more data fields may be provided for a user to enter information into the offer form, such as the monetary amount of the offer and an offer transmitting address, such as an email address. Offer terms may also be made selectable from various options on the offer form by providing indicators or checkboxes that may be checked to indicate selections from various options. In some embodiments, the offer form is automatically transmitted to the offer receiving address. In this embodiment, an offer transmittal actuator is generated as part of the offer form which must be selected for the offer to be transmitted to the offer receiving address associated with the property. A cancel button may also be provided to cancel the offer.

In step 60, responsive to the offer transmittal actuator being selected, the offer is transmitted through gateway 14 to the offer receiving address associated with the subject property involved in the offer.

In some embodiments, the contact person for the property is notified or otherwise receives information regarding the offer through gateway 14 using another transacting device 12, which may require the entry and approval of credentials, such as a username and password.

In step 62, the offer is received and may be viewed through a transacting device 12 in communication with gateway 14. An offer response actuator is generated and also displayed along with the offer through the transacting device 12.

In step 64, responsive to selecting the offer response actuator, a response form and response transmittal actuator are generated. The response may include a data field for data entry and/or selectable indicators, such as checkboxes, for selecting various responses to the offer, such as acceptance of the offer, a request for amendment of the terms of the offer, a counteroffer or a rejection of the offer, for example.

In step 66, the response is transmitted to the offer transmitting address responsive to the response transmittal actuator being selected and may be viewed through a transacting device, which may also require the entry and approval of proper credentials.

If the response is acceptance then the real estate transaction is ready to move forward towards fruition. If the response is a counteroffer, then the transacting party responsible for the original offer may now provide a response to the counteroffer in the same manner as above.

It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that while the disclosure has been described above in connection with particular embodiments and examples, the disclosure is not necessarily so limited, and that numerous other embodiments, examples, uses, modifications and departures from the embodiments, examples and uses are intended to be encompassed by the claims attached hereto. Various features and advantages of the disclosure are set forth in the following claims. 

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of facilitating real estate transactions, comprising the steps of: receiving property listing data through a first data communication device in communication with a source of property listing data, wherein the property listing data relates to one or more properties for sale and an offer receiving address; presenting a property information display on the first data communication device for each property; generating a unique transaction actuator in each property information display presented on the first data communication device, wherein the unique transaction actuator is associated with the specific property presented on the first data communication device; responsive to selecting a unique transaction actuator: generating an offer form with an offer transmittal actuator, wherein the offer form includes a plurality of data fields relating to an offer to purchase property; populating the data fields with the property information for the specific property associated with the selected unique transaction actuator, wherein the offer form represents an offer to purchase the specific property and includes an offer transmitting address; responsive to selecting the offer transmittal actuator, transmitting the populated offer form to the offer receiving address relating to the specific property; generating an offer response actuator for the populated offer form; presenting the populated offer form and the offer response actuator on a second data communication device; responsive to selecting the offer response actuator, generating a response form, wherein the response form includes at least one data field for entering a response to the offer and a response transmittal actuator; and responsive to selecting the response transmittal actuator, transmitting the response form with the entered response to the offer transmitting address.
 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein further comprising the step of mapping the property listing data for each property to present the property information display in a preset format.
 3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the source of property listing data comprises one or more data feeds containing real estate listing information.
 4. A system of facilitating real estate transactions, comprising a plurality of data communication devices and one or more processing devices for: receiving property listing data on a first communication device, wherein the property listing data relates to one or more properties for sale and an offer receiving address; presenting a property information display for each property on the first communication device; generating a unique transaction actuator in each property information display presented on the first data communication device, wherein the unique transaction actuator is associated with the specific property presented on the first data communication device; responsive to selecting a unique transaction actuator: generating an offer form with an offer transmittal actuator, wherein the offer form includes a plurality of data fields relating to an offer to purchase property; populating the data fields with the property information for the specific property associated with the selected unique transaction actuator, wherein the offer form represents an offer to purchase the specific property and includes an offer transmitting address; responsive to selecting the offer transmittal actuator, transmitting the populated offer form to the offer receiving address relating to the specific property; generating an offer response actuator for the populated offer form; presenting the populated offer form and the offer response actuator on a second data communication device; responsive to selecting the offer response actuator, generating a response form, wherein the response form includes at least one data field for entering a response to the offer and a response transmittal actuator; and responsive to selecting the response transmittal actuator, transmitting the response form with the entered response to the offer transmitting address. 